DAMASCUS, SYRIA – During the 2012 presidential election, former presidentBill Clinton suppressed his true feelings for his wife's arch rival. To project the appearance of political unity within the Democratic Party, Clinton refrained from criticizing Barack Obama. However, now that his wife has expressed interest in running for the presidency again in the next election, her husband has unleashed a scathing rebuke of the lame-duck president, insisting that Obama is a “wuss” and a “fool.”

Specifically, Clinton has criticized Obama for the president's reluctance to go “head to head and toe to toe” with Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. “To go mano a mano with an alpha male like Assad, you have to be a man,” Clinton said, “and, whatever else he may be, Barak Obama is certainly not a man.”

Later, Clinton said that he had been “misquoted” or “quoted out of context.” “What I said,” he said, “is that Obama is not man enough to go mano a mano with Assad.”

Obama's “dubious manhood,” Clinton further suggested, “is discernible in his constant deference to political polls.” Polls indicate that only 15 percent of Americans support military action in Syria. “A man, if he's manly enough,” Clinton insisted, “will buck the polls and do what's right, rather than what's popular.”

“Barak Obama is nothing more than a wuss and a fool,” the former president charged.

The president said he was “not surprised” by Clinton's “abusive comments.” Although Clinton had the “audacity to claim that he was America's first black president, I think it's clear to everyone but him that, when it comes to who is this nation's first black president, I am the real deal.”

Asked why Clinton would make such statements about him, Obama said, “He's a racist, like everyone else who disagrees with me.” Clinton's criticism, he said, “is, simply put, the foolish attempt by a white bigot to diss a sitting black president by branding him a 'wuss.'”

Obama said he had “no doubt” that Clinton would have preferred to call him an even more vehemently racist term, but “since his wife may run for my office again, and lose to Republicans, this time, instead of to me, Clinton has decided to use “a slightly less insulting slur.”

Clinton maintained that “Obama's skin isn't so much black--he is a mulatto, after all--as it is thin.”

“If he wants to be remembered as a strong president, he really has to grow a pair,” the former president added.